Bible Observations: Genesis 6-8

These chapters concern the story of Noah and the Flood. There are so many questions I have with these passages that I wonder how anyone could reasonably read and believe their literal veracity, word-for-word. Here they are:

--Genesis 6:1-3 talks about the sons of God marrying the daughters of man. To this (mysterious in its own right) passage, God responds by limiting the life span of people to 120 years max! So, what did I miss here?

--Right after that, in Genesis 6:4, the Nephilim (whoever they were) were presented and described as being “the heroes of old, men of renown”. But what puzzles me is that the passage says that they “were on the earth in those days—and also afterward”. Reading ahead that a flood is on the verge of wiping out all of humankind (except for Noah and his immediate family), how then could the Nephilim be around afterward?

--When God gave Noah instructions on how many animals to take into the ark (Genesis 6:19-7:3), He first told him to take in two of every animal, and then later told him to take in seven of each type of clean animal and seven of each type of bird.

--Given the enormous number of species of birds, mammals, and reptiles (putting aside arguments for arthropods, amphibians, and other groups) and how utterly impossible it would have been to bring them out of their specialized habitats across the planet and then cram them into the ark while sustaining them for 150 days, how can anyone in his or her good mind, with a straight face, wave this book around in the air and claim that all of it is literal truth?

--In Genesis 7:11, it was revealed that God accomplished His feat of thoroughly flooding out the Earth by opening the “floodgates” of heaven and bursting open the springs of Earth. Doesn’t this imply that the writer of this passage believed that the Earth’s interior was chiefly water and that precipitation came from heaven after “gates” were open to let it through? And if this is only figurative language, then how can a reader reasonably pick and choose what seems appropriate for literal or figurative interpretation? And wouldn’t that contradict fundamentalist literalism?

--At the end of Genesis 8, God reveals that He will never again “curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.” And yet elsewhere in the Bible, drought and famine is revealed as a judgment against people who have strayed out of God’s favor.

The Flood, taken as a story of faith and morality instead of literal truth, brings out some important points for me. For one, being humble and reverent in one’s relationship with God will help to endure and survive through the various storms and calamities that inevitably befall everyone throughout their lives. God is not only concerned with the prospering of humans, but also reveres the survival of every species of animal. So, it’s important that we conserve our environment and protect endangered species. The importance of being in a family that sticks together through trials is also revealed here. And, of course, one that has stuck with me since I first heard this story is that sometimes doing the “right thing” can be a very lonely exercise, often leading to isolation, ridicule, and even becoming ostracized within one’s society.

Next: Genesis 9-11